Ireland in the European System by James HoganReview by: Conyers ReadThe American Historical Review, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Jul., 1921), pp. 768-769Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1836748 .

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768 Reviews of Books

Ireland in the European System. By JAMES HOGAN, Professor of History, University College, Cork. Volume I., I500-I557. (London: Longmans, Green, and Company. I920. Pp. XXX, 237. I2S. 6d.) MR. H. G. WELLS in his Outline of History ventured the statement

that Ireland contributed little or nothing to the general drama of Euro- pean history before the nineteenth century. This volume is designed to prove the contrary. Strangely enough the author has chosen to begin his study with the year 1500. One would have thought that he could have refuted Mr. Wells far more convincingly had he begun ten centuries earlier. The reason why he did not do so becomes increasingly evident as his work proceeds. His real interest in Ireland lies in the develop- ment of her national consciousness and he finds the first expression of that consciousness in her revolt against Tudor despotism in the sixteenth century.

It is easy enough to agree with his denunciation of the Irish policy of the Tudors but not so easy to admit the national character of Irish re- sistance to it. Anyone familiar with the absolutely chaotic state of native Irish politics in the sixteenth century, and with the readiness of rival chieftains to court English assistance in their tribal quarrels, will de- mand far stronger proof than the author adduces for the existence of anything like a centralized national consciousness opposed to English rule, which he never tires of insisting upon. The fact is that the Tudors found it easy to tyrannize over Ireland for the simple reason that the Irish revealed practically no capacity for combined action against tyr- anny. It was not so much that they lacked leaders or organization. They lacked t'he essential spirit which would have provided both. On no other ground is it possible to explain the ability of Henry VIII., and particularly of Elizabeth, to maintain their policy in Ireland with the modest expenditure of blood and treasure which they were prepared to invest.

Professor Hogan is only indirectly concerned with this question, though his attitude toward it disposes him to regard every petty Irish refugee in Europe as a national ambassador and every cattle-raid as a national revolt. His main purpose is to disclose the position of Irelanid in the European system. So far as this first volume goes he is chiefly concerned with the relations between Irefand and the French crown. It cannot be said that he throws any fresh light on this subject. His re- searches have evidently been confined to material accessible in French, and it is not always easy to gather from his references how much use he has made even of printed source material. One wonders for example what he means by such a reference as " Domestic Calendar, Edward VI., volume III." (p. 83, nn. I, 2,), when one recalls that the domestic calen- dars begin with the year I547 and that the first volume of them covers the period 1547-I580; or to what he refers (p. 82, n. I) when he cites

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Rodocanachi: La Reformne en Italie 769

Irish MSS. State Papers, London. To secondary material he makes but slight reference and it is apparent from his text that he has ignored much of it. In fact as a piece of serious original research his work hardly deserves attention.

Of the general background of French history upon which his Irish facts and fancies are projected he reveals amazingly little knowledge. It is bad enough to have him maintain of Henry II. that few more hon- orable, generous, and acomplished kings have ever ruled France (p. 93). When he proclaims Catharine de Medici to have been "the animating spirit and the avenging fury of the Catholic party in France " (p. 95), he is about as wide of the mark as it is possible to be. It is hard to believe that he has even read Lavisse, letting alone the Lettres de Catherine de Me'dicis, which he cites in support of his statement.

In general the author would have us believe that the Irish situation played a part of first-rate importance in the calculations of the French crown when it was looking about for ways to do harm to England. But the facts do not bear him out, even if one confines one's attention to the facts as he presents them. With the splendid opportunities which Scotland presented, France had little need to think seriously of Ireland, though it was naturally the part of good policy to offer Irish rebels as much encouragement as could be cheaply given.

Professor Hogan is an ardent Irish nationalist. He is located at Cork. Probably, under these circumstances, he is not at present in the frame of mind to do serious historical research work. He is certainly not in the frame of mind to write judiciously about Irish history even

sixteenth-century Irish history. CONYERS READ.

La Refornie en Italie. By E. RODOCANACHI. Part I. (Paris:

Auguste Picard. 1920. PP. 465. io fr.)

THIS newest contribution to the history of the Reformation in the sixteenth century is at first an agreeable surprise. Since Thomas MIcCrie wrote, in I827, to be translated then into German, French, and Italian, no comprehensive work has been offered us. Comba's Storia della Ri- forma in Italia never got beyond the first volume, and his I nostri Pro- testanti, like Cantiu's Gli Eretici d'Italia, conforms to the exigencies of the title. Mrs. White, in i86o, attempted much the same thing under the guise of a biography of Aonio Paleario; but. her studies, as well as the modern ones of Mrs. Andrews (" Christopher Hare"), on "Men and Women of the Italian Reformation", aim at a wider public. The present writer, author of several works on the antiquities of the city of Rome and on Renaissance life, who has made one creditable excursion into the field of Reformation studies with his Renee de France, has sought to avoid the biographical method and-at least in this first part-the geographical,

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XXVI.-50.

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